Gonorrhea and its side effects

Gonorrhea is a bacterial infection that affects all genders. The bacterium causing this infection survive in the throat, the urethra and the rectum. According to some experts, this bacterium even survives in the cervix. Transmission occurs when someone comes in direct contact with gonorrhea-infected individual e.g. sexual contact.

Gonorrhea is an easy to treat sexually transmitted infection but if left untreated, it can cause side effects that can be irreversible. Side effects on men and women of gonorrhea vary.

Gonorrhea side effects on men

Men exposed to gonorrhea bacterium can start seeing symptoms of infection in as fast as two days. There are some who experiences it after a month of having contact with someone infected with Gonorrhea. Men with Gonorrhea infection can experience pain when urinating. They might experience swelling on one of their testicles while on their penis, they might notice some pus-like discharges. When disregarded, these symptoms can lead to infertility once the testicles get fully inflamed.

Gonorrhea side effects on women

Women exposed to gonorrhea bacterium often don’t know they are infected because they don’t experience any symptoms. If there are symptoms, they think that it is a bladder infection and just continue to disregard it. For women, the first symptom of gonorrhea infection appears after 10 days since contact with someone infected. The side effects of untreated gonorrhea in women are too much pain when urinating, having vaginal discharges and bleeding when it is not your time of the month yet and having painful and bloody intercourse. These side effects can lead to infertility in women because gonorrhea-causing bacterium can damage the uterus, cervix and fallopian tube. Untreated gonorrhea infection can also end up as a pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) or the scarring of the fallopian tube.

Other side effects of Gonorrhea that affects both genders

When engaging in anal sex, Gonorrhea infection can also occur. When the rectum is infected, it can cause itchiness in the anal area, having pus-like discharge from behind, painful bowel movements and having blood spots from the rectum. For some reasons, there are adults who end up having gonorrhea infection in their eyes leading to abnormal discharges from the eye and feeling pain in the eye area.

Gonorrhea can also affect the throat and the neck of an infected person.

Conclusion

Gonorrhea is indeed easy to treat and cheap to treat because you will only need to take antibiotics. Leave it as it is and you will suffer more from it. If you cannot avoid engaging in risky behaviors that put you at risk for contracting gonorrhea, then make sure that you always get tested for gonorrhea among other sexually transmitted infections. If you are infected, listen to what your doctor is saying and follow your prescription religiously. If you are advised to take antibiotics for 7 days, take it even if you start feeling better and you are no longer seeing any of the symptoms of your infections. Complete your prescribed duration of treatment to make sure that you will be cleared and after treatment, take another test.